Legal Writing Prof Blog: Legal Writing

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Writing Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Legal Writing

Legal Writing Prof Blog

By law professors Coleen M. Barger, Sue Liemer and Nancy Soonpaa

Post Frequency: 31.6/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:42:31

"I know good writing when I see it yet I can't explain to students how to do it"

Posted on September 10, 2009
That's the premise of this essay entitled "Feeling Fake in the Classroom" from the Chronicle of Higher Ed in which an undergraduate English instructor admits that the ability to recognize "bad" student writing from "good" doesn't always mean one can....

Joe Kimble Fixes the Federal Rules of Evidence

Posted on September 10, 2009
Professor Joseph Kimble of the Thomas Cooley School of Law was the principal drafter of the "restyled" Federal Rules of Evidence that were published for comment in August. Joe is now doing a series of articles about those changes. These...

Northwest regional conference, report #5

Posted on September 09, 2009
After lunch, I started the afternoon session with a session that showcased several techniques and websites that offer fun, non-law-related ways to teach legal writing concepts. I used museum art postcards as the basis of an analysis exercise and shared...

Newsletter for the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research

Posted on September 09, 2009
Here's a reminder that you can find past issues of the Section Newsletter for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research by visiting the section's webpage on the AALS website. Click here for a...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Professor Stanley Fish continues to advocate for good writing instruction

Posted on September 08, 2009
In yesterday's Opinion section of the NYT, several leading educators were asked to offer advice to college freshmen who are beginning classes around the country this week. Professor Stanley Fish, who we'd just previously blogged about, has this to say...

More writing advice - this time for academics

Posted on September 08, 2009
Academic writing is often among the most impenetrable prose ever inked. Now comes to the rescue this column from the Chronicle of Higher Ed offering advice on how to prune that prose to a fare-thee-well: Academics are not embarrassed by...

Legal Educator Blog Census - Version 2.0

Posted on September 08, 2009
Professor Colin Miller at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago has revised his Legal Educator Blog Census and posted the 2.0 version (which he says is the final version for this year). Here is the portion covering bloggers at...

Labor Day quotable

Posted on September 07, 2009
"Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as idleness." - Thomas Carlyle (spl)

Legal Writing Institute 101 -- What it is and how to join

Posted on September 06, 2009
The Legal Writing Institute is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to exchange ideas about legal writing and to provide a forum for research and scholarship about legal writing and legal analysis. The Institute is currently housed at Mercer University...

Northwest regional conference, report #4

Posted on September 06, 2009
The final session before lunch focused on New Takes on Tried and True Teaching Ideas. Mark DeForrest of Gonzaga discussed using Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham City Jail to teach persuasive writing techniques. He described the letter as...

Northwest regional conference, report #3

Posted on September 05, 2009
So after our carbohydrate-laden break of Voodoo doughnuts, we settled in for an hour of presentations on Designing Legal Writing Assignments. Kristen Martin of Whittier talked about environmental justice and legal writing assignments; she suggested that to counter the "moral...

To create an effective PowerPoint presentation, remember less is more

Posted on September 04, 2009
Here are some helpful tips on creating effective PowerPoint slides courtesy of the Business Writing Blog: Less data--just a few powerful pieces--is more compelling than heaps of numbers. Ten slides are more memorable than fifty. One clear idea moves an...

Video about the words we love to hate

Posted on September 04, 2009
Let's file this one under "Friday diversion," The long weekend is upon us, so sit back, put your feet up and take a break from class prep., grading, what-have-you and enjoy a tasty video courtesy of CNN. Embedded video from...

A reading revolution - the reading workshop

Posted on September 04, 2009
In case you missed it, this recent article from the NYT talks about a supposed "revolution" (ed note: you can add "revolution" to the list of words I'm beginning to hate - see below) taking place in secondary school education...

ALSCH conference -- call for proposals

Posted on September 04, 2009
Call for Participation: 13th Annual ASLCH Conference March 19-20, 2010 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities is an organization of scholars engaged in interdisciplinary, humanistic legal scholarship...

writing centers conference -- call for proposals

Posted on September 04, 2009
East Central Writing Centers Association Conference 2010 Converging At the Vanishing Point April 8-10, 2010 http://writing.msu.edu/ecwca Session Formats Presentations: Single presentations will be 15-20 minutes in length. If you submit your proposal alone you will be placed with like presentations...

Beware the foibles of online citators

Posted on September 03, 2009
Here's a great post by David Walker at the Law Librarian Blog about reliability problems with online citators including Westlaw's Keycite, Lexis' Shepards as well as open source upstarts like Precydent (previously discussed here). I'll let you read David's very...

Great online resource for writing style guides

Posted on September 03, 2009
Thanks to our good buddy Raymond Ward at the (new) legal writer for alerting us to this online list of writing style guides courtesy of DailyWritingTips.com. It's your one-stop resource that covers everything from Chicago Manuel of Style to the...

New Blog on Trade and Human Rights

Posted on September 03, 2009
Stephen Powell (Director of the International Trade Law Program at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law) has started a new blog on trade and human rights. Click here to visit Stephen Powell on Just Trade. (mew)

Hillary Burgess: Dude, Check it Out!

Posted on September 03, 2009
Hil lary Burgess (pictured at left) has a guest post on the Law School Academic Support Blog on the subject of what to think when law professors say "dude!" Legal writing folk mentioned in her post include Traci McGaugh and...

Northwest regional conference, report #1

Posted on September 02, 2009
This past weekend's Northwest Regional Legal Writing Conference was a great success, in no small part due to the many excellent presentations (as well, of course, to the hard work by the sponsoring schools, University of Oregon and Lewis &...

Northwest regional conference, report #1

free webinar on LRW outcomes and assessments

Posted on September 02, 2009
Professor Kirsten Davis, director of the legal writing program at Stetson University College of Law, has announced that school's innovative series of "virtual legal writing conferences," presented as free webinars for law school faculty. The first in the series addresses...

Professor Stanley Fish on writing - "don't call it a writing course unless you're actually teaching them how to write"

Posted on September 02, 2009
On his New York Times blog, FIU Law Professor Stanley Fish criticizes college writing courses that focus on substantive topics - "novels, movies, TV shows and . . . a variety of hot-button issues [like] racism, sexism, immigration, globalization" -...

Northwest regional conference, report #2

Posted on September 02, 2009
Our first break featured treats from Portland's Voodoo Doughnuts. (njs)

Pittsburgh regional LRW conference

Posted on September 01, 2009
The First ?Colonial Frontier? Legal Writing Conference -- December 5, 2009 host: The Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania co-sponsors: The University of Pittsburgh School of Law West Virginia University College of Law theme: Engendering Hope in the Legal...

More on whether the internet is producing better writers

Posted on September 01, 2009
We'd previously reported on a longitudinal study being done by Stanford that hopes to shed light on whether social networking and other forms of e-composition are producing a generation of "better" or "less" skilled writers than their predecessors. While we're...

job opening at South Texas (Houston, TX)

Posted on August 31, 2009
South Texas College of Law invites applications for one or more full-time, tenure-track positions beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year. In particular, South Texas is seeking to hire two individuals to teach Legal Research and Writing. The Legal Writing program...

Jessup Moot Court Rules for 2010 Now Available

Posted on August 29, 2009
Many readers of this blog are coaches of moot court teams competing in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. The International Law Students Association (ILSA) has just released the rules for the 2010 Jessup Competition. Among the...

the narrative of argument

Posted on August 29, 2009
Linda Edwards has written a very thoughtful article on Once Upon a Time in Law: Myth, Metaphor, and Authority, which you can get to just by clicking on the title here. Here's her abstract: "We have long accepted the role...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Update on AILF's Legal Action Center Visa Bulletin Litigation (Updated 7/10/07)
The following is the latest update from AILF regarding its pening ...

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center Legislative Forecast
The ILRC Forecast on Immigration ReformJudith Golub, Executive Dir...

The Christian Legal Society and "discrimation": Response to Susan
In response to Susan's post, I'm inclined to think that, yes, the ...

Stacy Scnheider Legal Commentator Apprentice

Catholic Legal Theory and life and death
Tom Berg’s question regarding the propriety or not of capital pu...